B2Bs are investing more heavily in content marketing as they continue to see it’s one of the best ways to reach online audiences. A recent study by Starfleet Media asked B2B brands about their spending and deployment of custom content, and it turns out that 28 percent spend more than half of their overall marketing budgets on content, and 63 percent will increase their spend over the course of the next year.
But what exactly are they using content marketing materials to accomplish? The study determined that B2Bs are realizing the importance of resources like white papers, case studies, infographics and in-depth blog posts for business goals across the sales funnel:
Leads: 84 percent were after qualified prospects, pure and simple
Conversions: 78 percent saw the most value when people actually converted
Traffic: 52 percent were after increased traffic numbers
SEO ranking: 35 percent wanted to see their search ranks go up
Taken together, this paints a clear picture of the B2B content marketing landscape. Overall traffic and SEO visibility are still important, but without in-depth content that lays out companies’ value propositions and visions, there’s no reason to expect more business.
Taking content to the digital streets
As Brafton reported, less than a third of B2B firms rate their content production efforts as effective, but it looks like they’re starting to invest more to jumpstart their results. An overall marketing strategy that looks holistically at prospect demographics and lead content consumption can bring in the kind of qualified traffic that more than justifies increases in content marketing budgets.
Want to learn more about balancing content and B2B marketing? Check out these related Brafton stories:
B2B marketing isn’t just about other companies – it’s also about consumers
Optimize B2B content for re-readability [study]
B2B & B2C brands agree on marketing importance; disagree on execution
